Antiferromagnetic skyrmion crystals: generation, topological Hall and topological spin Hall effect

Abstract

Skyrmions are topologically nontrivial, magnetic quasi-particles, that are characterized by a topological charge. A regular array of skyrmions - a skyrmion crystal (SkX) - features the topological Hall effect (THE) of electrons, that, in turn, gives rise to the Hall effect of the skyrmions themselves. It is commonly believed that antiferromagnetic skyrmion crystals (AFM-SkXs) lack both effects. In this Rapid Communication, we present a generally applicable method to create stable AFM-SkXs by growing a two sublattice SkX onto a collinear antiferromagnet. As an example we show that both types of skyrmion crystals - conventional and antiferromagnetic - exist in honeycomb lattices. While AFM-SkXs with equivalent lattice sites do not show a THE, they exhibit a topological spin Hall effect. On top of this, AFM-SkXs on inequivalent sublattices exhibit a nonzero THE, which may be utilized in spintronics devices. Our theoretical findings call for experimental realization.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Spontaneous Skyrmion Ground States in Magnetic Metals
• Skyrmion Hall Effect Revealed by Direct Time-Resolved X-Ray Microscopy
• Magnetic skyrmion logic gates: conversion, duplication and merging of skyrmions
• Skyrmions and Anomalous Hall Effect in a Dzyloshinskii-Moriya Spiral Magnet
• Robust formation of skyrmions and topological Hall effect in epitaxial thin films of MnSi
• Unconventional Topological Hall Effect in Skyrmion Crystals Caused by the Topology of the Lattice
• Topological Hall and Spin Hall Effects in Disordered Skyrmionic Textures

Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice induced by anisotropic couplings
• Topological Magnons and Edge States in Antiferromagnetic Skyrmion Crystals
• Magnonic topological insulators in antiferromagnets
• Forming individual magnetic biskyrmions by merging two skyrmions in a centrosymmetric nanodisk
• Spin eigen-excitations of an antiferromagnetic skyrmion
• Modelling spin waves in noncollinear antiferromagnets: spin-flop states, spin spirals, skyrmions and antiskyrmions
• Skyrmion Crystal and Phase Transition in Magneto-Ferroelectric Superlattices: Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in a Frustrated $J_1-J_2$ Model
• Electron transport through antiferromagnetic spin textures and skyrmions in a magnetic tunnel junction
• Tuning the antiferromagnetic helical pitch length and nanoscale domain size in Fe${}_3$PO${}_4$O${}_3$ by magnetic dilution
• 3D Analytical Model of Skyrmions and Skyrmion-like Structures in a Two-sublattice Antiferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction